The fable of the U.S. civilian gun market being responsible for "arming" Mexico's brutal drug cartels has become so deeply entrenched, that to question it is to be labeled a "right wing gun lobby shill."

Hence, the Brady Campaign's and Violence Policy Center's claims of "95 to 100%" of Mexican "crime guns" coming from the U.S. civilian market ...

What those who toss these numbers around rarely mention, if not pressed, or under oath, is that whatever the percentage they're currently quoting, that's the percentage of guns submitted to the BATFE for tracing (and successfully traced). We've discussed the fact that Senator John Kerry (D-MA)--no friend to gun owners--admitted once that only about a quarter of the seized guns are ever submitted for BATFE tracing...

Today, let's take a look at a second part of what the NSSF is telling us.

" In recent years as many as 150,000 Mexican soldiers, 17,000 last year alone, defected to go work for the drug cartels -- bringing their American-made service-issued firearms with them. It has also been well documented that the drug cartels are illegally smuggling fully automatic firearms, grenades and other weapons into Mexico from South and Central America. Such items are not being purchased at retail firearms stores in the United States. "

Corruption in the Mexican government? I'm shocked, I tell you--shocked!

the Brady Campaign's and Violence Policy Center's claims of "95 to 100%" of Mexican "crime guns" coming from the U.S. civilian market

Propaganda designed to be misleading.

The President (Calderon) included a crucial qualifier in his statement: he was referring only to the guns that Mexico has (with U.S. assistance) been able to or wanted to trace. And in that context, the Presidents claim is correct: he was referring to a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report concluding that, of the guns seized in Mexico and given to the ATF for tracing from 2004 through 2008, approximately 87 percent originated in the U.S.

But this number says nothing about the percentage of guns seized in Mexico that originated in the U.S., because the U.S. does not trace the majority of guns seized in Mexico. Figures like 87 percent sound impressive, but actual numbers are more illustrative. According to the GAO, the number of guns seized in Mexico that have been traced back to the U.S. has ranged from 5,260 in 2005 to 1,950 in 2006 to 3,060 in 2007 to 6,700 in 2008.

Thus, if the last three years the President mentioned are 2007, 2008, and 2009, only 9,760 of the guns seized in those years  the total of 2007 and 2008  definitely came from the U.S. The U.S. share for 2009 has not yet been reported, but even if it doubled the total of 2008, the U.S. share for all three years would be less than a third of the 75,000 seizures in Mexico. A more realistic U.S. share is between 20 and 25 percent.

Actually it is less than half that. The 9,760 is only about 13% of the 75,000 total. The rest are not mentioned. We are led to believe they are all AR-15's from Wal-Mart. AK-47's are rarely mentioned. It is always "assault weapons."

So where are the AK-47's coming from? They are brought in from places like Brazil, Pakistan, Albania, China, Bulgaria, Poland, Egypt, Iraq, India, Nigeria, Viet Nam, Venezuela and various African countries. But hey, that does not do anything to screw American Citizens so it is never mentioned. And the bullshit from little bammy and mexican president calderon is repeated over and over by the Ø-bots...

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.

-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.

-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."

-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

Lie after lie after lie, the Ø-bots drone on and on.

So where are they coming from exactly?

Ok...

-- The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.

- South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.

-- Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.

-- The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.

-- Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of America's cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.

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